Spooky season is rolling right along, and a week after the arrival of Kevin Greutert's Saw X, audiences everywhere have another horror franchise title to experience with David Gordon Green's The Exorcist: Believer. That being said, the two stories surrounding the two movies couldn't be more different. While Saw X arrived in theaters riding a wave of positive buzz and found immediate box office success thanks to its low production budget, The Exorcist: Believer has received mostly negative responses from critics and had a lower-than-expected opening weekend.
Check out the Top 10 for the first full weekend of October 2023 below, and join me after for anaylsis.
| TITLE | WEEKEND GROSS | DOMESTIC GROSS | LW | THTRS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. The Exorcist: Believer* | $27,200,000 | $27,200,000 | N/A | 3,663 |
| 2. PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie | $11,750,000 | $38,867,000 | 1 | 4,027 |
| 3. Saw X | $8,150,000 | $32,554,793 | 2 | 3,262 |
| 4. The Creator | $6,099,000 | $24,929,046 | 3 | 3,680 |
| 5. The Blind | $3,126,536 | $10,486,997 | 5 | 1,314 |
| 6. A Haunting In Venice | $2,732,000 | $35,653,726 | 6 | 2,425 |
| 7. The Nun II | $2,575,000 | $81,060,000 | 4 | 2,492 |
| 8. Dumb Money | $2,150,000 | $10,635,000 | 7 | 2,837 |
| 9. The Equalizer 3 | $1,835,000 | $88,837,000 | 8 | 1,526 |
| 10. Hocus Pocus | $1,542,000 | $45,643,060 | N/A | 1,430 |
The Exorcist: Believer Has A Franchise-Best Opening Weekend, But It's Not All Good News
The Exorcist: Believer became an incredibly expensive film before even a single frame was shot. When it was announced in July 2021 that Universal Pictures was producing a new Exorcist trilogy, The New York Times reported that the studio paid over $400 million for the rights to the franchise. Combined with the movie's $30 million production budget (via Fortune), a lot of money was invested in the legacyquels mirroring the success of David Gordon Green's recent Halloween sequels... but it's not quite off to an electric start.
According to The Numbers, The Exorcist: Believer made $27.2 million this past weekend, and while that is technically the best opening weekend for any title in the franchise (not accounting for inflation), there are valid concerns to be had. For starters, the ticket sales are nowhere near what 2018's Halloween did when it arrived in theaters – the film starring Jamie Lee Curtis making $76.2 million in its first three days. The results are also notably below than the $30 million-plus predictions put out by Deadline last week, and that's really bad news if weekend-to-weekend patterns hold true.
Those who tracked the box office performance of David Gordon Green's Halloween films will remember that each of the titles struggled mightily in their second weekends. It's worth noting that 2021's Halloween Kills (which fell 71 percent) and 2022's Halloween Ends (which fell 80 percent) were handicapped by being simultaneously released on Peacock, but even the trilogy starter had a tough 59 percent fall. If The Exorcist: Believer experiences a similar kind of plummet, that's going to make Universal Pictures and the producers at Blumhouse concerned about their gamble.
As far as the domestic performance is concerned, it's all but guaranteed that we will look at The Exorcist: Believer's box office as being frontloaded, and that entirely has to do with the film's reception. There is a certain percentage of the audience that was going to see the film in its opening weekend no matter what, but there is another significant percentage that's been waiting on the word of mouth. Not only has the horror movie been blasted by a majority of critics, but CinemaScore surveys have returned a "C" grade.
With domestic success in question, there is now a lot of pressure on The Exorcist: Believer's box office ticket sales overseas, but thus far, the money isn't rolling in. The Numbers says that just $17.9 million has come in from markets outside the United States and Canada, bringing the film's worldwide total to $45.1 million. That's a nice bite out of the budget, publicity and marketing for the movie, but there is still a long road to travel before Universal's original investment pays off.
It will be fascinating to see how the reception and box office impacts the development of The Exorcist: Deceiver, which is expected to start production in the first half of next year in target of the film's announced April 18, 2025 release date.
PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie Is Not Being Scared Away By Spooky Season
When Cal Brunker's PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie won the box office last week, I noted a lack of competition for the film in October 2023: The Exorcist: Believer is not a film, for example, that is aiming at the animated sequel's core demographic. This circumstance means that the feature has a real chance at becoming being a huge hit this month, and thus far it is doing just that.
The movie had a strong opening, making $22.8 million, and it has now followed up that powerful debut by dropping just 48 percent in its second weekend. The $11.8 million it has earned in the last three days has pushed its domestic total up to $38.9 million, and we may see it stick around in the Top 5 for a while. It's well outpacing its predecessor currently: after its tenth day in theaters in 2021, Cal Brunker's PAW Patrol: The Movie had only made $24.1 million. Worldwide, PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie has made $87.1 million, and it appears well on its way to surpassing the previous film's $151.4 million total.
Saw X And The Creator Both Have Modest Second Weekends
Unlike PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie, both Saw X and Gareth Edwards' The Creator witnessed a significant portion of their target audiences distracted by the arrival of The Exorcist: Believer... but what's surprising is that neither title got significantly hurt. You'd think that Saw X in particular would see its box office numbers badly dinged by a new horror film in release, but that isn't the case. The Tobin Bell-led feature had a weekend-to-weekend drop of just 55 percent; it's made $43.9 million globally so far.
The Creator once again had to settle for a Top 10 position behind Saw X, and it had a slightly bigger drop of 57 percent compared to opening weekend ticket sales. The original sci-fi film has made $61.8 million so far in its theatrical run around the world.
Next week should be a strange one for the movie world, as the only new title playing in wide release is Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour. Can the power of Swifties result in a concert film taking the #1 spot of the box office Top 10? Head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday for find out, and for a look ahead at all the films set to be released between now and the end of the year, head over to our 2023 Movie Release Calendar.
